Curfewing PUBG

The recent development in smartphone culture has made mobile gaming one of the default leisure time activity across all age groups. Unfortunately, like many other addictive habits, some games turn out to be the cause of negative life consequences like an impaired social relationship, decrease professional or academic performance, sleeping/eating disorder and so on. Due to such outcomes, problematic games nowadays have come under medical consideration as it’s included in Section III of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders under the name of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD).

Lately, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) has become the most popular online multiplayer games in Nepal and because of its violence content, there have been debates over whether this game should or shouldn’t be allowed for kids. Given the fact that PUBG Mobile is essentially free on both Android and iOS which are easily accessible for kids these days, means many teens enjoy the privilege to indulge in such gaming. Recently there were reports that on the one hand Nepal government has ordered to impose ban on PUBG and on other hand team of lawyers filed Public Interest Litigation (PIL) at the Supreme Court against the government decision to ban the game. The PIL was based on the ground that the order issued by the Kathmandu District Court on request of the Metropolitan Police Crime Division (MPCD) seems clear violation of Fundamental Rights of people to use resources in a democratic country. On top of that there are loads of online posts from the public side against the government decision to ban. Just this week the news pops out that the Supreme Court issued an interim order in the name of government authorities to not implement Kathmandu District Court’s decision to ban PUBG.

Amid such context, I think the government should consider both sides and find a middle passage to balance the issue. Banning seems like brutally imposed undemocratic move on people, instead the government should think of some limitation or specific restriction mechanism to control excessive gaming among targeted group. Given the addictive potential of PUBG and increased gaming time are closely related, one policy solution for Nepal can be; limiting gaming availability by using protection system like data cap. A data cap refers to a bandwidth limitation imposed on transfer of data over a specific network, usually imposed by ISP’s to limit customer’s usage of their provided data. In case of PUBG, it uses 40mb data per hour and if the internet service providers like Worldlink, Vianet and others offer limited date accordingly for specific games, the playing hours can be controlled. With data being controlled and under limitation, the children’s will not be able to indulge deeply on online gaming and remain far from its negative consequences like violent behavior. If children are provided with limited time frame to enjoy such games excessively, there will be less chance for it developing as an addiction on a large scale. So either by forced government policies or by implementing a system like ‘selective shutdown’, Nepal can limits children time spending on online gaming.

For more alternatives our government can learn from restriction initiations adopted by other countries and develop similar control mechanism accordingly with our gaming context. In 2011, the South Korean government forward “Selective Shutdown policy” to curb gaming addiction by limiting teen’s access to online gaming. This policy gives right for legal guardians to make a request to Internet Service Provider to prevent gaming access for certain hours as per their choice and law ensured that games providers must follow-up parent’s request. Similarly responding to gaming addiction among people, in 2003 the Thai government also imposed curfew online gaming, requiring all game servers to be blocked between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. similar law was executed in Vietnam in 2011 when the government ordered Internet service providers to block access to all online games between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. In China also the government is looking for ways to impose an age restriction on gaming through face recognition system.

Nepal seems to be at a crossroads when it comes to the future of the internet and technology. Rapid development and availability of tech gadgets have raised some practical challenges that we need to collectively address as a society before it’s too late. It highly depends on our internet law and digital culture whether we let our future generation to use tech for better or for worse? Thus, it’s also important to note that general cultural factors and changes need to be taken into consideration when planning policy actions.

Just banning was never the rational solution, it’s also vital to consider social factor and public response when planning any policy actions. Apart from legal issues, we need to see the practical aspect of any policy. Even the current initiation to ban PUBG became a matter of public dissatisfaction and mocking as many compared government interest on game ban over recent tax fraud and corruption issues. Nepal now is running against time as we live in an entirely tech-based world where our morning tea begins with twitter feeds. Unlike decades ago, those things that were new to us have now become part of normal life. PUBG today is not just a game in Nepal, it’s a rampant phenomenon. Thousands of User’s response after news of banning has already proven this fact. Beside, just playing PUBG never implants violent behaviour in children or disturb their academic performance, such negative consequences occurs only when they overdo it or become addict. Metaphorically the decision of government was same like imposing ban on import/export to control smuggling. So the government policy should be directed to curb gaming addiction, not restricting citizens from playing the game.

Sites consulted:

Internet gaming disorder: https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/internet-gaming

South Korean policy : https://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/22/world/asia/south-korea-gaming/index.html

Thai government impose curfew on game : https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/thai-government-imposes-night-curfew-on-online-gaming